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And since when have we cared how things are "generally" known? I don't care a whit what the crowd thinks, and I doubt you do either.

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Sounds like democracy, which is the individual projected onto the larger screen. Not every approach has that flaw.

In theory? Probably not. The practice, as always is a lot messier. It is fairly instructive that the attempts in the last century to develop an alternative to Western-style democracy all rapidly decayed into personality cults, a process we've gotten to witness in real time in Russia over the last decade or so.

We all care what is generally know. We're using language, which depends on tokens being roughly identical in understanding between speaker and listener for there to be any actual communication.

Besides, that dodges the fact:

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This is generally known as submission, acceptance, and concession.

"I'll just fix up my yard and make it nice and ignore the world" is how we got in this situation. It's submission, acceptance and concession. You're giving everyone else the OK to do whatever they want.

It is imperative to instead at least speak up and push back. Or you grant them approval.

Experience suggests another possibility to me. Society works when everyone tends his own garden and straightens his own back yard, and it fails when it fills up with people ready to root around in other folks' yards. That is, in a nutshell, what liberalism is; a bunch of busybodies who think that society should be empowered to tend everyone's spaces for them. This puts the strong at the mercy of the weak, and makes the weak entirely dependent on society for their existence. Not surprisingly, it benefits no one but the little Eichmann's of the bureaucratic castes.

Society works when everyone tends his own garden and straightens his own back yard, and it fails when it fills up with people ready to root around in other folks' yards.

Experience suggests otherwise -- you either have strong leadership, or your civilization falls apart. You either have cultural values, or you have anarchy. You seem to prefer the shopping mall model which, not surprisingly, is what you have.

Society works when everyone tends his own garden and straightens his own back yard, and it fails when it fills up with people ready to root around in other folks' yards.

Experience suggests otherwise -- you either have strong leadership, or your civilization falls apart. You either have cultural values, or you have anarchy. You seem to prefer the shopping mall model which, not surprisingly, is what you have.

Who was more a leader, Cincinnatus at his plow, or Coriolanus at the head of an army? You speak of "leadership" is if it were about making people do things, but that's not leadership; it is domination, and domination is always an exercise of the ego.

You speak of "leadership" is if it were about making people do things, but that's not leadership; it is domination, and domination is always an exercise of the ego.

Civilization is about making people do things. In times of war, we defend; in times of peace, decisions must be made that involve all. To pretend otherwise is trendy libertarian double-speak, but it's not an address of reality.

Further the dichotomy between "domination" and "leadership." Leadership is making the right decisions. Domination is a method. It has no necessary link to the ego, except in those unworthy of the responsibility.

This is true whether at a company, a PTA bake sale, a local church committee, a farm, even a family. Leadership is necessary or it becomes "everyone do whatever they want," which is what you advocate.

The problem with liberalism is not that it exercises power; it's that its consequences are always bad because it is based in illusion.

I prefer organic leadership, which consists of putting the best people in charge and having a cultural shared values system to do the rest. This is distinct from the modern state, which operates by ideological commitment and shuns both the idea of people quality and cultural shared values because those conflict with its justification for rule, which is the equality of the individual.

See if your neighborhood has decent lawns. Anyone that doesn't do the basics of lawn care should be corrected.

I used to have neighbors who were sort of slovenly in the upkeep of their property ("We're not into maintenance around here," was how they liked to phrase it). The old codger across the street couldn't fucking stand it, and in his defense, their property really was quite the local eyesore. But the harder he pushed, the more times he tried to get the neighborhood association to weigh in, the more nuisance calls he made to the cops, the less effort they put into keeping their property up.

Now, I knew that they weren't inherently lazy folks; in their back yard, they keep a lovely kitchen garden as well as few hens (I've been trading fish for eggs and produce since moving in). Last spring, I went over to drop off a trout I'd promised to smoke for them, and we got to talking about the latest round of their ongoing feud with the Old Codger. I asked them why they didn't just suck it up and do the maintenance to get him off their backs. Well, it turns out that the reason they were "not into maintenance" is that neither of them had ever really used tools. They didn't even begin to have the skill sets to perform repairs themselves, and, financially, hiring people to take care of the most unsightly and pressing problems was out of the question.

Sadly, I'm no great shakes with tools, either, and my DIY projects always look like what they are; make-do approximations built by someone who doesn't really know what the hell he's doing. But I do know someone who is an absolute genius with a hammer in his hand: the Old Codger. Ultimately, it took some back and forth and a lot of (annoying) mediation, but for the last year, the Old Codger has been over at their house nearly every weekend, teaching our maintenance free couple how to fix and keep up their property. The street looks way nicer, the Codger is staying busy doing something other than obsessing about the imperfections of his neighbors, and I don't have cop cars parked out in front of my house twice a month.

Civilization is about getting people to do things, which is a different kettle of fish. Sometimes, the doing must be, to some degree, compelled. The problem is that compulsion can only ever be a temporary fix, a means of exerting control in crisis. It can't form the basis of a social order, and every society ever built on a framework of raw compulsion self-destructed within a generation or two, at most. Certainly, knocking heads has to be in the tool box, so to speak, but that's a remedy for the things that leadership alone can't fix.

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In times of war, we defend; in times of peace, decisions must be made that involve all. To pretend otherwise is trendy libertarian double-speak, but it's not an address of reality.

I don't disagree with the premise, I just have no faith in the notion that, "Get the right leaders, and force everyone to follow them," addresses reality, either. At some point, you have to get people to buy into the program, not just shuffle along for the moment because you'll crack heads if they don't. There's no hammer big enough to keep everyone in line forever, and, eventually the folks being 'led' always figure that out.

Understand that I'm not advocating surrender, I'm just advocating for avenues for leadership that aren't tied to "politics" as such. For me, that means starting by putting those places where I have the power to effect immediate change in order and working out. I stick to my back yard, but it's a big back yard, if the distinction means something.